Self-Assessment Reflection
In reflecting, we can change, we can transform, we can envisage.
-- Ann Berthoff
Reflection gives you a change to take charge of your education, but often times, you don’t realize you have capability to do so: you complete an assignment to get a grade; you enroll in a class because it fulfills a requirement; or you simply don’t engage with the material of a class. The type of reflection you are going to do to conclude this course helps move you towards becoming the active “agent” Yancey discussed in her chapter, thus, you are going to conclude this quarter by being extremely mindful and openly honest by assessing ... yourself.
In as many words as you feel necessary, please asses yourself in this course.
Below are some things to think about/with and the opening of my assessment letter to you all.
Please conclude your self-assessment with a “rate my student” response following the exact same measures as “rate my professor” does.
DO NOT put this up on your Tumblr. Instead, please bring it with you to your conference on Tuesday or Wednesday, you will be turning it into me.
Things to think about before beginning:
1. Learning and effort are not one the same *but* they do compliment each other.
2. Writing is a process, so review your entire “portfolio” of work from the quarter: from Tumblr posts to Sunday Somethings to major assignments to in-class work and participation. We’ve had (or will have by Sunday) 9 Sunday Somethings; 13 homework Tumblr posts (associated with 10 readings); 2 maps; 1 scavenger hunt; 3 extra credit “games,”; 3 major writing assignments (various drafts); 3 drafts of your theory of writing; and many, many discussions.
3. What did you first believe about writing? What do you now believe about writing? Has it been revised? Built upon? Remained exactly the same? How do you know?
4. Have you been an active, engaged participant (remember how we defined active and engaged, it’s not just about talking)? Have you texted repeatedly in class? Have you missed more than 2 days of classes? Have your assignments been perpetually late or written in haste at 3:00 in the morning?
5. Why is “writing so much more than a grade?”
6. You are not evaluating yourself ... you are assessing yourself. Please keep that in mind.
Arguable the most important question to ask yourself and to be able to articulate in concrete ways ...
What have you learned?
As a reminder ... here is what the opening of my assessment letter to you said:
We are told that college prepares us for life – whatever “life” may be for us outside of college. It could be a career in the business world, it could be as medical doctor, it could be as a professional athlete, it could be as manager of a 5 star resort. Our goal(s) while in college are to learn skills, knowledges, and practices that will enable us to be successful in life past college. As freshmen, sometimes it can be difficult to imagine this because you still have several years of college left to complete, but even as a freshmen you still begin to learn information and practices that will carry forward with you. The hope of any course – whether it’s a writing course, a course in the major, or a common core course – is that you learn a knowledge, a practice, or a skill that you transfer to another context, experience, or situation. In order for this to effectively happen, our focus needs to shift slightly from only thinking about the grade to thinking about what we are learning – this, of course, is challenging. We are told from a young age that grades matter, and while they do matter, they should not be the only, main, live-or-die, focus – we are limiting our ability to truly open up and learn by doing so. Why? Because the focus is only on the grade – in a writing class, this tends to mean that students write with the sole focus of getting an “A” or getting a “B” instead of focusing on the process, the audience, the rhetorical situation, etc. We also limit our ability to take a risk for fear of doing something “wrong” or write simply to “please” the teacher; however, to put this into perspective by a well-known, fairly successful writer:
Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.
In short, writing is so much more than writing for a grade.
annaxmalina
2087
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